Step by Bloody Step

I was psyched for this miniseries when it was first announced.  Simon Spurrier is one of my favorite writers and he did great work with Matias Bergara on the fantasy epic “Coda,” as well as issues of “Hellblazer” and “The Dreaming.”  For the two of them to team up again on a new creator-owned work seemed like a can’t-miss proposition.  Better still was the fact that this was going to show some real ambition on their part as “Step by Bloody Step” was going to be a “silent” comic, where all of the story would be communicated in the art alone.  Talented creators pushing themselves to new heights!  What’s not to like?

Now that I’ve read through this story (twice) I can say that the silent format is one that doesn’t really suit these creators.  It’s not that the story itself is hard to understand since it’s pretty simple and straightforward:  There’s a little girl who’s being protected by someone in a giant suit of armor.  This isn’t quite a grimdark version of “The Iron Giant,” but that description isn’t too far off from what we get here.

The problem is that it feels like there’s a lot of information about these characters and their world that’s being deliberately withheld or obfuscated because of how the creators have decided to tell their story.  We’re introduced to citizens of multiple countries, different species of humanoids, monuments of old civilizations gone by.  It seems like an interesting world based on these sights and the characters we encounter within it.  Too bad there’s no way for us to find out anything more about them beyond what we’re able to infer ourselves.

This goes for the relationship at the heart of the story between the girl and the individual in the giant suit of armor.  A parental bond is implied between the two from the start and it’s one of the few things that gets fleshed out over the course of the story.  Not all that well, I’ll add, because all we get is the general arc of it without any of the details that would’ve helped to distinguish it.

What I’m getting at here is that the decision to make this a silent story comes off as feeling more limiting than freeing.  Even if I’m able to grasp the overall direction of the story, I’m left feeling that it could’ve been told just as well if not better had the creators decided to tell it with words and pictures.  If nothing else, Spurrier and Bergara would’ve been able to actually explain the magical deus ex machina that rears its head at the story’s climax.  I’m not saying they can’t have such a thing in their story, but a development as big as this really does need some proper explanation if it’s going to work.  You just can’t drop it in the reader’s lap and ask them to accept it sight unseen.

It is at least very pretty to look at.  Bergara showed in “Coda” that he can deliver a visually interesting fantasy world and he does so again here with plenty of little details that beg to be examined closer.  His storytelling is also solid enough that I believe following the story won’t be a problem for most readers.  It’s not perfect, though, as there are a couple parts where his attention to detail gets in the way of telling the story.  Where a scene will be so lovingly rendered, but in a way that’s more aesthetically pleasing than conductive to the story.

“Step by Bloody Step” is ultimately an ambitious misfire.  I can’t fault Spurrier and Bergara’s ambition in telling this story, though I can certainly take issue with their execution.  Silent stories work best when they don’t leave you feeling that a whole lot of information has been withheld in their telling.  This seems like a fascinating world that Spurrier and Bergara have created, with an intriguing relationship at its center.  It’s too bad that we couldn’t have learned more about them here.